All-star thriller 20th Century Boys continues with the blockbuster trilogy’s second chapter, The Last Hope! The visionary trilogy’s first chapter, The Beginning of the End, laid the roots with the tale of a group of friends who emerged as unlikely heroes in the battle against an apocalyptic evil they had unwittingly foretold as children. Picking up the story 15 years after the events of the first film, Chapter 2 introduces viewers to a Japan that has completely fallen under the fascist spell of masked cult leader “Friend” after he stepped in to save the world from the virus he unleashed. Most of the resistance fighters including Kenji (Karasawa Toshiaki) have been missing or imprisoned since the bloody New Year’s Eve showdown, and are now branded as terrorists.

It all begins in 1969 when a young boy named Kenji and his friends get together in their secret fort in a vacant lot and write "The Book of Prophecy." In their book, they write about a future where they fight against an evil organization trying to takeover the world and bring about doomsday. Years later in 1997, Kenji is the manager of a convenience store who has given up his dream of becoming a rock star and leads a simple life as he raises his sister’s baby girl Kanna after his sister suddenly disappears. Then one day, his boring life is turned upside down when his old classmate, Donkey dies mysteriously and then an entire family in his neighborhood disappears.

The best way to really enjoy this installment of 20th Century Boys, is to quickly break out the DVDs of the previous two films, watch them to jog your memory, before turning up for this one. Given the myriad of characters and the lag between the local releases, a revisit is somewhat necessary since there's very little recap, and the juxtaposition of timelines through flashbacks also provide that additional narrative challenge, not to mention that memories, being memories, tend to be faulty as well, for both you, as well as the characters in the storyline.

The chapter 2 of the 20th Century Boys trilogy starts in 2015, 15 years after the world is nearly destroyed. People now believe that Kenji and his friends were satanic terrorists and Friend, the mysterious cult leader, is worshipped as the savior of the world.

Based on the hugely successful, award winning manga series created by Naoki Urasawa (Yawara; Monster), 20TH CENTURY BOYS is the first instalment of the mind-blowing, three-part live-action adaptation of the epic sci-fi fantasy adventure originally inspired by the T. Rex song 20th Century BoyIn 1969, Kenji, an elementary school kid and his friends built a secret base during their summer holidays. They fantasized that they had to fight villains who were out to conquer the world and wrote them in the Book of Prophecies. Years later in 1997, Kenji becomes a convenience store manager and leads a regular life after giving up his dreams to become a rock star. His boring life is suddenly turned upside down when his old classmate dies mysteriously and an entire family in the neighbourhood disappears. At the same time, a religious cult and its mysterious leader, Friend emerges and a strange chain of events duplicating exactly the events described in the Book of Prophecies follow. Is this the beginning of the end of the world? Who is Friend? (Official UK synopsis for Theatrical and DVD release; used with permission of UK license holder 4Digital Asia)

It's 2015. The Friend has been the de facto ruler of Japan and tremendously popular around the world since defeating "terrorist" Kenji Endo on Bloody New Year's Eve fifteen years earlier. Kanna Endo (Airi Taira), now 18, knows the truth about Friend and her uncle (but not that Friend claims to be her father), but there is not much she and her uncle's friends can do about it, especially with "Shogun" (Etushi Toyokawa) locked up and Yukiji (Takako Tokiwa) focused on Kanna's safety. What none of them know about is that there's a "New Book of Prophecy", which lays out Friend's plan to "destroy humanity and become god". Are Kanna, her classmate Kyoko (Haruka Kinami), and Detective Chono (Naohito Fujiki), the grandson of a legendary cop killed for getting too close to the truth back in Chapter One, ready to follow in their predecessors' footsteps?